Camera speed color photographic materials which are the most popular among photographic films comprise a unit recording blue light exposure to form a yellow dye image, a unit recording green light exposure to form a magenta dye image and a unit recording red light exposure to form a cyan dye image. In the development process of reducing silver halide grains containing latent images to silver, a developing agent is oxidized and the resulting oxidation product reacts with a dye forming coupler (or coupling) to form a dye image. Undeveloped silver halide is removed in the fixing step and developed silver is removed in the bleaching step. Obtained negative dye images are optically printed onto color photographic paper and a positive color print is obtained through developing, bleaching and fixing steps similar to the color photographic material.
The constitution of conventional color photographic films have been complicated. For example, the photographic films contain not only three kinds of light sensitive layers but also colloidal silver or dye to enhance spectral sensitivity of the three light sensitive layers, dye forming couplers, masking couplers to enhance faithful color reproducibility when printed onto a color photographic paper and fine silver particles or dye to prevent halation.
Recent popularization of personal computers and increased density of recording media have increased opportunity in which recording information of a processed photographic material is converted to electronic image information by means of an apparatus such as a film scanner and after subjected to processing such as image processing, is outputted onto silver salt paper or other recording materials. There are described in JP-A 10-111548 (herein, the term, JP-A means published and unexamined Japanese Patent Application) a color photographic recording element, an image forming method and an apparatus, which are suited for reading such image information.
Recently, further rapid access of processing is demonded. Of the processing steps, the desilvering process (including bleaching and fixing steps) accounts for about half of the total processing time.
There is also increased concern to take into account the influence of processing effluents on the environment. Specifically, in view of problems concerning processing effluent from the bleaching and fixing steps, a continued improvement for enhancing environmental suitability and shortening of the step is desired.
However, rapid access or shortening of the desilvering process results in rather large amounts of silver remaining in the processed color photographic material, producing factors deteriorating picture quality in the optical exposure onto color paper or in digitally reading by a scanner.
European Patent No. 526,931 describes rapid access of processing by digitally reading, instead of light exposure onto color paper from a processed color film. JP-A 6-266066 described a method of digitally reading information based on residual silver or developed silver, without forming dye images. JP-A 9-146247 describes a method suited both for projected light-exposure onto color paper from a processed photographic material still retaining silver and also for digital reading by means of a negative film scanner using diffuse light.
JP-A 6-28468 describes a method in which image information of the infrared wavelength region is employed in digitally reading information recorded in photographic materials for camera use. A technique employing this technique is known Digital ICE produced by Applied Science Fiction Corp, while a commercially available product known as LS 2000 is available from Nikon Corp. Thus, employment of the invisible image information (i.e., image information of the infrared wavelength region) is a technique for correcting surface defects to remove factors degrading picture quality, such as dust, flaws or mold on the surface of the photographic material. However, nothing is known with respect to a method for simplifying the processing steps by removal of residual silver employing image information of a wavelength region, in which a dye imagewise obtained upon development has no absorption, e.g., in the infrared wavelength region.